 | The seven surviving canvasses by Gerald Murphy are featured in "Making It New." This work, "Bibliothèque (Library)," is considered the most personal of his paintings because it incorporates elements of his father's library. |
The expatriate couple that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “Tender
Is the Night” is the focus of a new exhibition opening Tuesday, Feb.
26, at the Yale University Art Gallery.
T H I S
Expatriate couple’s influence
recalled in ‘Making It New’
Legendary for a lifestyle that was modern in its simplicity and free from stifling
social regimentation, Sara and Gerald Murphy influenced such artists, writers
and musicians as Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, Jean Cocteau,
Serge Diaghilev and Fernand Léger, in addition to Fitzgerald. The exhibition, “Making
It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy,” explores their
cultural influence and contributions.
A Yale alumnus (Class of 1912) and classmate of Cole Porter, Gerald Murphy
was among the first Americans to move abroad and immerse himself in the early
20th-century culture of Paris. He painted for less than a decade, producing
just a small body of work. Many of his images anticipate Pop Art. “Making
It New” brings together for the first time his seven surviving canvases.
The exhibition also features paintings, drawings, watercolors and photographs
of artists within his circle, including Picasso, Léger, Juan Gris and
Amédée Ozenfant. The exhibit includes a series of watercolors
dedicated to Gerald and Sara Murphy by Léger; photographs of the Murphy
family and its circle by Man Ray; and the family’s personal photographs,
home movies, letters and other memorabilia.
“Sara and Gerald Murphy’s ever-apparent love of art and life inspired
all of those who came into contact with them,” says Jock Reynolds, the
Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Yale University Art Gallery. “During
their now-legendary decade spent abroad in Paris and on the French Riviera, the
young American couple’s remarkable social graces and intellectual curiosities
created a circle of friendships that helped fuel creative interactions among
many artists whose work was then boldly expanding the boundaries of visual art,
theater, music, dance and literature.”
Sara and Gerald Murphy moved to France in 1921 with their three young children
to live free from the conservative mores of their wealthy families. They made
their home in Cap d’Antibes, then a little-known fishing village in the
south of France, and named their home “Villa America.” Their lifestyle
there fostered creativity and intellectual freedom for a notable group of American
expatriates and avant-garde European artists, writers and musicians.
Encouraged by Picasso and further inspired by the revolutionary aesthetics
of Gris, Léger and Ozenfant, Gerald Murphy began painting canvases in
a style midway between realism and abstraction. His “Bibliothèque
(Library),” created in 1926-1927, is considered the most personal of
his paintings. Acquired by the Yale Art Gallery in 2006, it incorporates elements
of his father’s library, including books, a globe and a Roman bust. Also
featured in the exhibition are Murphy’s paintings “Razor” (1924), “Watch” (1925)
and “Cocktail” (1927), all riffs on American advertising and commercialism.
Sara Murphy was known for her beauty and originality, and inspired both Ernest
Hemingway and Picasso. She has also been praised for having a creative flair
for making life into art. Her delicate costume designs were an important contribution
to the ballet “Within the Quota,” for which her husband created
the stage-set design. The ballet also featured a score by Porter.
The Murphys’ existence at Villa America ended after only a decade, as
their son Patrick’s battle with tuberculosis and the Great Depression
required their return to America in 1934. Gerald Murphy resumed the presidency
of the family leather business, the Mark Cross Company. The tragic deaths of
both of their sons as teenagers, coupled with financial responsibilities of
the firm, left him without the will or time to pursue his art.
Fitzgerald modeled Dick and Nicole Diver, his protagonists in “Tender
Is the Night,” on the Murphys. In trying to define the couple’s
special allure, their friend, writer Archibald MacLeish, said, “There
was a shine to life wherever they were: not a decorative added value but a
kind of revelation of inherent loveliness.”
“Making It New” will be on view through May 4. The exhibit was first
shown at the Williams College Museum of Art and was organized at Yale by Helen
A. Cooper, the Holcombe T. Green Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, “Making
It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy,” which is available
at the gallery’s bookstore. Following its presentation at Yale, the exhibit
will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art.
Several special events are being offered in conjunction with the exhibit. Throughout
the month of February, numerous music groups on campus are including pieces
from the 1920s in their programs. Check the gallery’s website (http://artgallery.yale.edu)
for details. The Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Memorial Symposium, titled “A
Freshly Invented World: Art and Innovation in the 1920s,” takes place
on Saturday, April 12, 9:15 a.m.-5 p.m. The keynote lecture for the symposium will be given at 5:30 p.m. on
Friday, April 11, by Wanda Corn, the Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita
in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University.
The Yale University Art Gallery, located at 1111 Chapel St., is open to the
public free of charge Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Thursday until 8 p.m.
September-June) and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. For more information, visit http://artgallery.yale.edu
or call (203) 432-0600.
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